When Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Tom Wheeler’s recent comments on soon-to-be-released proposals for preserving net neutrality slipped into public view, some critics saw the end effect as just the opposite of what was stated – that is, as an attack on net neutrality. Not so, responded the FCC, claiming it aims only to restore neutrality rules recently overturned in court rulings.

Kevin Werbach, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics, says in this Knowledge@Wharton interview that the proposals most likely will not threaten net neutrality principles. But he warns that the real danger to the Internet ecosystem in the U.S. is the dearth of competition at the broadband provider level.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Knowledge@Wharton: We’re going to talk about the suddenly controversial issue of net neutrality and the FCC’s proposals that could affect it. Let’s start with a thumbnail sketch of what net neutrality is.

Kevin Werbach: It’s funny you say “suddenly,” because in some ways, this has been a sudden controversy after the FCC proposals leaked a few days ago. But this controversy has been going on for the past decade. Network neutrality is basically the principle that Internet access providers – [including] companies like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast — shouldn’t discriminate in how they handle traffic on the Internet.

Knowledge@Wharton: So, whoever you are, if you want to offer information on the Internet, you get the same speed as everyone else?

Werbach: Well, exactly what it means is difficult and controversial…. But the general notion is that anyone can connect to the Internet. If I have a startup I may have very little capital, but I can get on the Internet, provide my service and reach customers. I don’t need permission from some company. I don’t have to pay them a special fee just to get online … and the customers of those broadband providers can get access to anything that’s there.

Knowledge@Wharton: Some are calling the proposals a death knell for net neutrality…. Tell us what everyone’s worried about, and whether or not they should be worried.

Werbach: The first point that’s important to understand is where we are today. At this moment in the United States, there are virtually no network neutrality rules that are legally enforceable. There are some rules that apply to Comcast uniquely because of some conditions it agreed to during a prior merger. And there’s one FCC rule that says that broadband providers have to be transparent in their network management practices. All the other rules were thrown out in court a few months ago — and that was after the FCC’s prior attempt to impose network neutrality was also thrown out in court.

But fortunately, the court in the most recent decision gave the FCC validation on the basic legal theory it used. The big question up until then was, “Does the FCC even have jurisdiction to address these issues?” The FCC regulates telephone service, television and so forth, [but] there was an argument that it couldn’t impose rules on Internet services. The court, for the first time, said, “Yes, they do [have the jurisdiction]” under the kind of legal theory they were using. They just couldn’t adopt the rules that they proposed.

Fast forward to today. FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has circulated to the Commission a set of proposals to adopt network neutrality rules, to ban blocking of traffic, to ban certain kinds of discrimination of traffic. The rules aren’t public yet. They’re going to be circulated among the Commissioners. If they are adopted by the Commission, it will become a proposal that goes out for public comment. But the concern has been from some quarters that the proposal doesn’t go far enough in restricting a certain kind of practice which is called “Paid Prioritization.” The idea is that there’s the basic Internet lane that anyone can use, but broadband providers might have more leeway to offer faster or better service for an additional fee.

Knowledge@Wharton: The possibility of a two-speed service has raised certain concerns. Some worry that while you can pay extra to get the faster speed, in the end, the main lane would be degraded in some way. And so, they worry about protections. Also, up until now, the industry and all of its stakeholders have been agreeing to certain conventions, where network neutrality has been respected. So far, that has worked — but now it seems that could change.

Werbach: Absolutely. It’s important to point out that we’re talking about connections on the network side. As an end-user customer — as an individual or a business — you have options for different speeds. You can go to your broadband provider and say, “I want five megabit service, 10 megabit service,” or whatever they offer. We’re not talking about fast lanes and slow lanes that way. The issue is for content and service providers – whether a company like Netflix that provides service to customers of Verizon or Comcast can be offered an enhanced delivery service.